HIGH-SPEED EXCHANGE SYSTEM, SURGICAL DEVICE WIN AWARDS

       Nine projects out of 543 entrants have been chosen for this year's National Innovation Awards, a contest aimed at promoting and encouraging local development of innovative technologies.

       The chairman of the awards' selection committee, former industry minister Kosit Panpiemras, said the contest could be used to reduce imports of computer-software products and promote local intellectual property in both local and international markets.
       Run by the National Innovation Agency (NIA), the awards are divided into two categories: one for economic contributions and the other for social contributions. Points are awarded in accordance with the use of the latest technologies and level of innovation, process management and possible benefits.
       The winner of the National Innovation Award for Economic Contribution was the Forth mini-Multi Service Access Network (mini-MSAN), developed by Forth Corp in Bangkok. The device is a high-speed telephone and Internet exchange system that uses high technology. It was designed for the multimedia services of TOT, including home telephone, public telephone, high-speed Internet and fibre-to-the-home super-Internet broadband.
       Sawat Erbchokchai, research-and-development and business-development director at Forth, said the mini-MSAN would do away with the need to import telephone exchanges worth Bt1.5 billion. The device will enable TOT to provide Internet-protocol TV and high-speed Internet access to customers around the country.
       Kosit said the first runner-up in the economic-contribution category was Laminated Paper Recovery, developed by the Flexo Research Group. The process is a global innovation in the production of alternative paper pulp from waste laminated paper. Biological and chemical technologies are applied when a particular enzyme, which can degrade laminated paper, is used to remove the paper from various materials, such as aluminium foil and plastic. Then the paper is decomposed to become pulp, which can be recycled to produce paper. The technology saves costs and is environmentally friendly, Kosit said.
       A second runner-up award went to C-Move Tracking System, developed by DX Innovation. The software-system innovation helps manage the transport of manufactured products. Shippers and logistics service providers can use C-Move to enhance the efficiency of product-transport systems, reducing the number of empty trips made by trucks and cutting transport costs.
       The NIA gave merit awards in the economic-contribution category to B-Move RFID Sensor Network for Vehicle Tracking and LeKiSe T5 Fluorescent Lamp Label No 5.
       The B-Move Sensor Network is a wireless sensor network for real-time vehicle tracking using embedded systems, communications engineering, computer engineering and logistics systems. It tracks and monitors vehicles in real-time using a radio-frequency identification (RFID) sensor network. It has low operating costs and can be applied widely in the industrial sector.
       The LeKiSe T5 Fluorescent Lamp claims to have maximum efficiency. It can save 40 per cent of electricity and uses fluorescent-lamp-manufacturing technology, materials and process development technology, as well as a special coating consisting of phosphor and alumina that increases luminance.
       Kosit said the National Innovation Award for Social Contribution was won by the PSU Carpal Tunnel Retractor, which he described as a world-class innovation in surgical equipment designed to treat numbness in the wrist area through a small incision measuring 1.5-1.8 centimetres.
       The device makes a small tunnel in the space between nerves, tendons and muscles to improve lighting for an operation lasting only eight to 10 minutes.
       The developer of the PSU Carpal Tunnel Retractor, Sunton Wongsiri, who is a lecturer in the Orthopaedic Department at Prince of Songkla University's Songklanagarind Hospital, said the device could help patients suffering from numbness in the wrist area that could result in permanent amyotrophy, a wasting away of muscle tissue. About 5.6 per cent of women are at risk of this disease.
       He said the device enabled recovery within a week without recurrence for Bt1,500 to Bt2,000 per treatment. It not only treats disease quickly, but also reduces the need for imported medical equipment.
       Sunton said Prince of Songkla University was now proceeding with commercial exploitation of the innovation.
       The NIA did not make awards for first or second runners-up in the social-contribution category. However, it gave merit awards to two projects, one called CU-Detect and the other Microtube Gel Test for Blood Typing.
       CU-Detect is a medical liquid detector designed to test for type-A (H1N1) influenza virus that provides results within 30 minutes. The detector helps reduce the use of laboratory equipment and can be used in areas with limited equipment and personnel. This low-cost analysis set can also reduce imports of expensive liquid detectors that are slower to show results.
       The Microtube Gel Test for Blood Typing uses porous gel filtration to separate proteins to determine the gathering reaction in haemoglobin. Results are equivalent to those from conventional tube testing.